


i love you (ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?)

by mikhailoist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x18 spoilers, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27500074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikhailoist/pseuds/mikhailoist
Summary: After Chuck is defeated and the world returns to its natural order, Dean finds out that his very own happy ending is still out there, waiting for him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 202





	i love you (ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?)

When Castiel comes back, Dean expects it to happen — he’s known it would happen for a while, now that Chuck is gone and the Empty has no need to hold onto the angel anymore. It sends Cas back to earth, and Dean realizes he and the angel will have to find each other again, because the world has been destroyed and rebuilt in the wake of God’s rampage and there’s a lot of healing left to be done before Dean can even blink in the direction of his happy ending. But it happens eventually, after Sam reunites with Eileen and they run off together, hand-in-hand, to keep on hunting or maybe not, Dean isn’t really sure; he just knows that for him and his little brother, this is the end of the road, for now.

“We don’t really have any work left to do,” Sam had said to him. “Maybe one day we will, and when that day comes, you can give me a call. But it’s pretty quiet right now, don’t you think?”

He was right. Dean had never seen the world at peace like this before. The sun peered through the clouds in a way it never had in all the years he’d been alive, washing the world clean with this soft, golden light that put his soul at ease. Every morning, he’d wake up to the cheerful song of birds outside his window — he honestly can’t remember the last time he’d heard them — and the leaves on the trees were a little greener, the sky a little bluer. There were still monsters in the world, of course — there always would be, because that was the natural order of things, but at least now, it felt a little more like how things were supposed to be. Humans coexisting with the supernatural in a world that was actually a little bit beautiful, and not ruined a million times over by a selfish god who just wanted to write his own bloody horror story.

So, yes, it was quiet. A little too quiet, maybe, without Castiel.

“You should go find him,” were Sam’s final words to him. He gave Dean this look of understanding, because he _knew_ — well, maybe he’d always known. After all, Dean was the one who had been so blind to it all those years. Not just blind to Castiel’s feelings, but to his own.

The brothers hugged each other, and Dean watched as the younger Winchester set off with Eileen, and then he stood there for a moment. Turned his face up towards the sky and felt the warmth of the sun shining on his skin. And he knew. He didn’t know how he knew, but everything in his mind and body and heart told him that his angel was alive. They just needed to find each other again.

When it finally happens, when Dean finally lays his eyes on Cas again for the first time in weeks — maybe in months — they’re back where they started. Perhaps it was always meant to come full circle this way. The barn where they first met is much older now; the wood in the walls is rotted and gray, and the entire building is run-down, forgotten. It’s just a quiet little place standing in a field of weeds, a place that no one has thought about or been to in years. When Dean steps into the barn, it’s almost completely dark, and the moonlight from outside can barely sneak in through the boarded up windows. If he squints, he can still see the remnants of the wardings he and Bobby painted on the walls all those years ago.

And then he sees him. It all happens so fast, the angel emerging from the shadows, all messy black-haired and blue-eyed and wrapped up in that dirty trenchcoat of his. He looks younger somehow. Brighter, well-rested. He gives Dean this quirked, tiny smile that is so very Castiel, and everything about him is familiar and foreign and comforting and intimidating all at once. Dean feels it, then — that rush of feelings, that fight or flight response. He’s so used to ignoring the way his heart picks up whenever he sees his angel, that spark in his bones that tells him what their relationship is, what it was always meant to be, what it always should have been. He’s so used to not listening to any of that. And right here, in this place, he could’ve kept up the act. He could’ve said “Hey buddy” and pulled his friend into a hug and that’s it — that would’ve been okay, right? It was always okay before.

And then he remembers: _“Knowing you has changed me. I cared about the whole world because of you. I love you.”_

He meets Castiel’s eyes, slowly, and he can see it all, then. All those feelings inside the angel that he was never really aware of before. Cas smiles a little wider, and Dean knows his friend would be happy with just this — the normalcy of this, the two of them at each other’s sides again. Cas was never desperate for anything more. He loves Dean, and sure, confessing how he felt made him happy — happy enough to get taken away by the Empty — and now that he’s back, things can just go back to how they were before. That would be okay. Wouldn’t it?

“Cas,” Dean says. His voice is quiet, but it echoes off the walls of the empty barn. Castiel steps forward, one foot in front of the other, slowly, until they’re only a few feet apart.

“Hello, Dean,” he says.

And it all falls apart then, because seeing him here, _alive,_ hearing his voice — it throws every single rational thought out the window. Dean rushes up to Cas and presses their lips together before his mind can even catch up with his body, and when he finally realizes that he should be panicking over this, he’s just… _not_. Because it’s nothing to panic over. Because it’s Cas, and their lips fit together like two puzzle pieces that have been dancing around each other for over a decade, and when Dean tightens his fist around the lapel of his angel’s coat and pulls him a little closer, everything slots into place. Cas places his hands on Dean’s waist and kisses him back, and Dean sighs a little into his mouth, and everything about him tastes and smells and feels like home. 

They part for air after who knows how long, and Dean doesn’t even notice he’s crying until Cas lifts a hand to his best friend’s face and wipes the tears away. His fingers linger on Dean’s cheekbone for a moment, and Dean leans into his touch.

He doesn’t have the words to say everything he wants to. He’s not like that; he’s never been like that. But right now, standing in the place where they first met, the feeling of the angel’s lips still warm on his own, he manages to think of something. Something he should’ve said when Cas laid down his life for him all those weeks ago.

“I love you,” Dean says. “Did you know that?”

It’s so easy when he finally says it, and Dean wonders why he hadn’t been saying it all along. He hopes that Cas knew, even if he didn’t always show it. He hopes that, even though they’re together again, Cas hadn’t died thinking the man he gave up everything for didn’t feel the same way.

Cas smiles, and lowers his hand to cup Dean’s cheek in his palm. He leans forward a little and presses their foreheads together, and Dean closes his eyes, the tears drying on his skin. The angel initiates the next kiss after that, and it’s much softer this time, slower. It feels like a promise, somehow. Dean isn’t sure what Cas is promising him. Maybe that they’ll be happy finally, or maybe that Cas will be patient with Dean, because of course Dean isn’t really sure where they’re gonna go from here. This is still pretty new to him, and he loves Cas, he _loves_ him, but he’s afraid of his feelings, he’s always gonna be afraid of his feelings, and he has no clue what the next step is. But this kiss, it feels like a promise from Cas that he doesn’t mind how scared Dean is, or how much things are gonna change after this, or how much wasted time they’ll have to make up for. Castiel will wait as long as Dean needs, because that’s what he’s always done. When they pull apart, Dean can see in his eyes that that’s exactly what his best friend is promising him. To wait, and to stand by his side, and to love him, always.

“I know now,” Castiel says.

That’s all Dean needs, in the end. After Chuck has been defeated, his brother has moved on, and the world has been saved, Dean finds his happy ending in the arms of his angel, the one who fell from Heaven because he had fallen for him. Dean kisses him again, and again, and he loves him, and he swears he’s not gonna be afraid of it anymore.


End file.
